Joseph Kent

Joseph Kent (14 January 1779-24 November 1837) was a member of the US House of Representatives (F-MD 2) from 4 March 1811 to 3 March 1815 (succeeding Archibald Van Horne and preceding John Carlyle Herbert) and from 4 March 1819 to 6 January 1826 (succeeding Herbert and preceding John Crompton Weems), Governor from 9 January 1826 to 15 January 1829 (succeeding Samuel Stevens Jr. and preceding Daniel Martin), and a US Senator from 4 March 1833 to 24 November 1837 (succeeding Samuel Smith and preceding William Duhurst Merrick).

Biography
Joseph Kent was born in Calvert County, Maryland in 1779, and he opened a medical practice in Lower Marlborough in 1799. He purchased a 300-acre estate near Bladensburg and became a militia colonel, and he also became a director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Kent served in the US House of Representatives from 1811 to 1815 as a Federalist Party member, but he served as a Democratic-Republican from 1819 to 1826. That year, he won the gubernatorial election, serving until 1829. Kent then served in the US Senate from 1833 until his death in 1837.